


Anosognosia

by Skinandpit



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Gen, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 22:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1566920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skinandpit/pseuds/Skinandpit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has this idea that if he lets go, his chest will crack open and something will fall out. His guts. His heart. His excrement, coming in black waves from his intestines.</p><p>A 4x12 fic from Ian's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anosognosia

Mickey leaves in the morning. This is not altogether surprising, because everyone always leaves, because he is shit. 

Before he goes, Mickey touches his hand to Ian's forehead like he's checking for temperature and brushes the hair out of his face. Ian tries to think about that, but he can't. He's bad. The world is bad. It's as pure as that, bleakness all around, nothing but dark times as far as the eye can see.

###

_Yeah,_ Mickey says, _well, fuck you, too._

###

It's been like this before, but not as absolute. 

It's been like this before, but not as heavy. 

The wrongness, it settles in around him like a nest of flies. His skin feels prickly all over, as if something were living in it. He burrows into the blankets and clutches at his own shoulder. He has this idea, like, if he lets go his chest will crack open and something will fall out. His guts. His heart. His excrement, coming in black waves from his intestines. 

He thinks he's going to be sick. 

He’d do anything — anything — to make it go away.    


###

Yesterday, there was blood on his face and Mickey was holding his hand and they were laughing. They were stupid and fearless and in love. They were going to love each other ferociously and defiantly. They were going to love each other sweetly, learn how to touch the soft places now that the fist had come down and somehow, miraculously, only their skin had been bruised. 

Already, that feels like it happened about twenty years ago. 

###

Sometime midday he crawls out of bed to piss. His skin is cold but he's not going to put on a sweater or take the blankets with him. Christ, he can hardly summon the energy to breathe. 

Mickey's wife is sitting on a chair in the kitchen, a red-streaked towel around her shoulders and her hair in a plastic net. "Orange boy," she says. Her voice sounds like water over rocks. Normally, Ian sort of likes her -- he's got this thing for people who are willing to hold hammers to his throat -- but right now, even thinking about talking makes him feel like Sisyphus. "You like the colour?” she says to him, and he walks past, shuts the door. 

He shits out about half his insides, he feels so sick, he wonders if he's getting the flu and knows he isn't. 

When he walks past Svletlana the second time, she looks straight at him. "Orange boy," she says, "don't get back in bed. It's too late."

Ian doesn't stop. He pulls Mickey's door shut behind him -- keep the fuck out, that sounds about right -- and crawls back under the covers, and wraps them around himself like a cocoon. 

###

It’s not sadness. It’s something much, much worse. 

###

He yells at Mickey when Mickey comes back, making stupid noises about how he’s mumbling and how he has to get up.   Ian can’t get up. He can’t leave this stupid bed that's keeping him some margin of sane. If he gets out of bed he's going to slide to the floor. If he gets out of bed he's going to slit his wrists. If he gets out of bed he's going to turn into Monica, selfish and pitiful and ruining all their good days. 

_What's wrong with him?_ Mandy wants to know.

_Hell if I know._

###

Hell if Mickey knows. Hell if Mandy does.   Ian doesn't want to make any fucking guesses. 

###

Debbie's standing at the doorway. She's saying, _yeah, we know what this is._

###

He listens to Mickey talking at the doorway, his voice all knotted up, and thinks, _Gallaghers don't go to therapy._

He listens to Mickey talk and he can't stop crying but at least he can keep quiet, squeeze the tears back in his throat until it aches, a technique learned from years with a shared bedroom and a dirty secret.

###

He has this image of some monstrous insect sitting in his insides, gobbling up everything it can get its proboscis on. That's how he feels: hollowed out and heavy, all this weight with nothing to show.

###

Fiona is sitting behind him. She's rubbing his shoulders. She's kissing his hair. _Stay,_ he thinks, _please,_ but he can't make the words come out because he wants her right now, maybe, but will he want her in an hour? Will he want her in a day? He can't know. Everything is so heavy and he's so tired and she's got her hand on his back. 

He thinks about Monica -- her blood spurting, getting all over the floor and the bandages. He wants his mom. He’s got Fiona instead. 

She wants to go for a run and the idea is laughable. He guesses he likes runs. Yesterday, he took all these photos of sunrises. He shuts his eyes. 

_Okay,_ she says, and kisses his forehead again. _Okay._

It isn’t. It won’t be. It’s terrible, everything is holding him down and his thoughts are a hairshirt but she says it so gently and his family stands in the doorway and Mickey is watching her. He doesn’t turn and he doesn’t speak, but just for a second he lets himself believe she might be right.


End file.
